Hello Friends and Family,
So this past transfer, though it was a beating, turned out
to be a major success in my eyes. Yesterday, we had two different investigators
at church and 4 separate reactivation of members that had been less actives for
a long period of time. It was so cool and I could hardly stop smiling the whole
time at church. All the hard work and mental stress paid off. Elder Skouson
said it was the hardest transfer of his mission thus far. With little help we
took a dry patch of ground and made it fertile once again.
You want to know what is going to happen with me this next
transfer??? Drum roll... I'm getting transferred to Butiá!!! Butiá is located
on the outskirts of Porto Alegre the city. So I'm not going to far from where I
am right now but it should be a nice change, new environment, new missionaries,
and less hills. I don't know who is going to be my next companion but I have a
hunch it is going to be Elder Weber, a Brazilian. From what I've heard about
him he sounds like "a good guy" so I hope that means he likes to
work, we'll see. Tomorrow around 2 o' clock I will travel to the train station
where the transfers take place, find my new companion, and off we go!
I has been a huge learning experience here in Glória and I'm
so stoked to have started my mission here. I won't get any harder than this
area from what people tell me, I hope they aren't joking.
My Portuguese is well
enough now that I can communicate and understand pretty much everything.
Speaking is still a bit of a challenge some times but it has improved 7 fold.
One more transfer and I should be a talking fool. The Americans tell me not to
worry about it, they say I'm speaking better than they were at 5 months, 3 in
the field. I'm more concerned about teaching with the spirit now. There was a
missionary that passed through this mission a few years back that finished his
mission barely speaking Portuguese but he was one of the most successful
missionaries to pass through this mission. It was because he taught with the
spirit in a way that his investigators, even though that didn't understand his
speech, knew that what he was saying was true. I heard that in his last weeks
in the mission he baptized like 20 something people!!!
A lot of cool experiences happened this week. First off, we
taught a young man, 17years old, named André. He is a street contact I made
this one day in pouring rain. He was playing soccer by himself pulling a bunch
of fancy moves and I, trying not to be awkward, just asked him "Where did
you learn to play soccer like this" and so we started talking. We taught
him a couple times this week and I have high hopes for him in the future with
the next missionary that comes here.
Also, one day this week we were looking for the address
number 71. It was one number in a long list a contacts made by other Elders
that had passed through this area some time back. To make a long story short we
could not find 71, this happens a lot, but we saw a number 73 and for
"some reason" decided to knock on that door to find directions for
number 71. We clapped outside the house and out came this lady, probably in her
early 50's. I began to say "We are missionaries of the church"... and
she said, "of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." We were a bit
shocked and begun to question how she knew the church. Turns out she was
baptized 18 years back but had turned away from the church soon after. She had
moved a couple times since and I doubt anyone knew where she was. We talked a
bit and she said that she had recently moved because her husband had been
beating the family for some time and judge said she had to move from the area
or lose the kids. She has a bunch of kids that are pretty much grown up now,
but she has a bundle of grand kids that live with her, some of them are of
baptism age. We picked her up to go to church yesterday and we will see what
happens in the future. I hope Elder Skouson and the new Elder can get that
family's life back together with the help of the church.
The rest of the day today I will pack my bags and get ready
for tomorrow. Oh and Elder Bednar is coming in this week. I'm super stoked. Not
only is a living apostle going to be here but it's going to be almost one on
one with him, because it is just the Porto Alegre zones that will see him, not
the whole mission. Happy Birthday Dad, Love you a ton. GO 49'rs! This super
bowl sounds like a good one.
Much Love,
Elder Miller
No comments:
Post a Comment